


Journey to the Distant Shore  9: Murky Water's Becoming  Clearer

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-28
Updated: 2003-08-28
Packaged: 2019-04-27 06:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14419710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: While they are in Toronto, Scully and Mulder are visited by Gibson Praise.





	Journey to the Distant Shore  9: Murky Water's Becoming  Clearer

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

Murky Water's Becoming Clearer

## Murky Water's Becoming Clearer

### by Pattie

From: 

Title: Murky Water's Becoming Clearer: Journey to the Distant Shore: Part 9. 

Author: Pattie 

Rated: PG 

Spoilers: Seasons 1 through 9 Myth-Arc, "The Truth". 

Archive: Gossamer preferred. 

Feedback: Certainly. 

Summary: Taking all their files, folders and discoveries, Mulder and Scully begin to wrack their brains to put the pieces together to come up with something other than just "hope". After all, God helps those who use what he gave them to help themselves. Someone inextricably involved in the issues between the aliens, the world, and Mulder and Scully is ready to lend a hand. 

Disclaimers: Mulder, Scully, Bill Mulder, Maggie Scully, and Gibson Praise and the Myth-Arc belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. The silly stuff and the typos are mine. 

Howard Johnson Motor Inn,  
Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  
Two weeks after Mulder and Scully's breakaway. 

Mulder tipped the bell-hop as he dropped off the last of the luggage. Scully had the files and folders in her backpack and dropped the heavy heap on the bed. Then she plopped herself beside the mess and lay flat on her back. "You know, Mulder, shoulder-bag syndrome is reaching epidemic proportions in this day and age, and now I'm one of the stats. I don't know how the hell we even got over the border with all this stuff!" 

Mulder took his shaving kit into the bathroom. "I guess telling them I was an English teacher from New York marking my students' theses on science fiction devices in media helped in some little way. Do you think we should drop our pseudonymns, Maggie, and re-join the land of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully? Or should we play fantasy life for a little bit longer?" 

"I don't think it's fantasy life, Billy. I look at it as more like "Safe Street". Even though we didn't make the papers, we did make enemeies of the oddest origins, and some of them may be waiting for us toget too careless, too cocky. Even with all this data here, I think we're better off as Maggie Malone Freeman and Billy "Spunky" Freeman." 

Mulder sat to left of her on the bed. "Even so, it feels so unnatural calling you by your mother's name. It's almost to the point where I want to call you Dana. How can I keep calling you Maggie? I love YOU. Why should I keep using your last name, for that matter? It sounds like I'm talking to a neighbour over the fence when I say anything. "Yo, Scully! How about them Knicks?" If we're not work partners, and we're not a pseudonymous newly-wed couple, it's time we were real, genuine--ourselves." 

Scully sat bolt upright and poked Mulder in the chest. "You HATE the name "Fox". Only your parents, Samantha and my Mom called you Fox, remember? Call me "Mulder". First day in the office together, first case together?" 

"Yeah, I'm not really a Mulder, either, save by my birth registration. I've often wondered if Dad knew the real story of my conception or whether he was kept in the dark. But if ever there were a name I wanted, and needed, it was Mulder. I will never accept the Spender name. I can accept Jeffrey Spender as my half-brother, even C.G.B. Spender as my real father, but never the name." 

"Call me Dana," Scully whispered, licking his ear and carressing the back of his neck. "Let's just be the Freemans until we can see our way through the fog, okay?" 

Mulder was breathing heavily as he passionately kissed and nibbled Scully's neck. "Yes, Dana. Yes... Why don't we cast off our, um... Dana..." They were interrupted by the phone beside the bed. Huffing and puffing, Mulder cried, "We're not expecting any calls! Damn... Hello? Who? Okay...Yes. Send him right up." 

"Mulder? You okay? You look a little whiter than these sheets right now. What was that about?" 

"You'll never guess-- well, besides the foreplay interruptus \--Gibson Praise. I don't know where he was hiding, who helped him get out of the F.B.I. building, but he's here. And I know it's not to wish us a happy honeymoon and bring a late wedding gift. Lord knows, Scully, we can't keep him safe either anymore..." 

"Give him some credit, will you, Mulder!" She patted Mulder's cheek. "He's grown so much. Who knows what help he can be. My guess is he can very well protect himself now that he's not a kid anymore. He's one of our best allies, and he's a friend. Don't worry, Ahab..." She put on an imitation of Mulder's puppy dog face. 

"Jutt out that lower lip a bit more, and you'll get me to do anything you want, baby!" 

Scully hastened to the door to greet their commrade. "Come in, Gibson, are you..." 

"Alone? No one followed me.They can't read me and I don't let them." 

Mulder poured himself a soda. "Thirsty Gibson?" He poured cully a diet cola and waited for Gibson's answer. 

"Sure I'd love some mineral water. It's kinda hot out there, isn't it?" 

Mulder smiled. "Yeah, I think most Americans know even Toronto gets hot and sticky in the summer. I've been to some of the baseball games. Honest, Scully, I did take some time off in the past ten years." 

"When the electric pencil sharpener shorted out, or the supplies department wouldn't le you have any more pencils to throw onto the ceiling tiles. Gibson, why ARE you here? I sense it's not a social call. Did John and Monica send you?" 

Gibson Praise sipped some mineral water. "I asked them to tell me where you were. You need to know the resistance, the aliens who are totally against this colonization by 2012, they don't want to put off a confrontation anymore." 

Scully had a surge of fright-feeding adrenaline. "They're calling for an early war, aren't they? Damn... I knew it!" 

"No, no. They don't want anyone warring over the Earth. They realize that just because they came from planets, and wars and Armageddons you can't imagine, it all has to stop sometime, somewhere. Theirs is a more compassonate race than those who live in the black oil. The grays, the bounty hunters, they may be outnumbered by a massive front of resistance from the race Jeremiah Smith represents." 

"Do they have a plan?" Mulder wondered aloud. "What will happen and when?" 

"I'm not sure yet. But do know that you, Dr. Scully, and your baby boy have something they need. And if they have to go away without it they will, and they will die as will their race. But not before the others suffer serious damage. Damage enough to send them out. Purity, the grays and the shapeshifters are from places Hubble hasn't begun to map." 

With that mother bear look in her eyes, Scully asked, trying to use her soft voice, containing her fear and anger, "What do the three of US have that THEY want? Besides scars..." 

"A cure. A vaccine. And Jeremiah's people cannot do it by laying their hands on each other. It comes down to microbiology. In a way, you are their version of a Messiah. Maybe Mary, babe and deity rolled into one." 

"But how..." 

"From what the descendants of the Anasazi told me, there are many races in the universe. But all answer to a creator. Even the Consortium menbers thought they were doing good, until they met the evil in the aliens. The aliens broke the promises made in 1947. Men of considerable wealth and influence lost their family members to a false promise. And because of your quest, which was still a noble one, the right one, Mr. Mulder, you and your partner lost so many loved ones. No more." 

"Where are Jeremiah Smith and his soldiers?" 

"I should know pretty soon. I have a few more stops to make, and I'll be in touch with you," Gibson stood tall and proud. "Oh, Kersh is not your enemy, never was. Now you can have that life together you were dreaming about, when you spent the time at my trailer last year. I'll be safe, and I will know where to contact you. Just be careful, and stay away from the F.B.I. and the N.S.A. until things are cleared up, okay?" 

Scully hugged the young, special man. "Okay. I think you're the best friend we've made in the past ten years," she said tearfully. 

Mulder put his arm around Scully and shook Gibson's hand. "That goes for me, too. Remember Gibson: you're unique. But you never need to be lonely or alone. Thanks for the help, buddy." He, too, hugged Gibson, smiling, but with a tear in his eye. 

"Just my life's mission, I guess. Gotta get a bus to Buffalo. You're a lot better to me than my parents were at times, but I do love them. Take care." The young man closed the door behind himself and dropped a piece of hotel stationary as he did so. 

Scully picked it up and read it to Mulder. "I know you two aren't just friends. You were always more than friends... Gibson." 

"See? I told you we were destined to be together, didn't I?" As Mulder ducked the thrown stationary, he realized Gibson's words were so true. And maybe he knew it from the first day he heard Scully's heels click click into the "Office of the F.B.I.'s Most Unwanted". "Indeed, the murky water's getting clearer." He kissed the nape of Scully's neck as she melted into his embrace. "I'd sail off into the sunset only with you." 

"Me, too, Ahab. Me, too." 

Pattie. 

End of Part 9/?   
  


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